Zoom with the LSOP Team, Live!
Everyone is welcome to join—any age, any location. Hop on the Zoom with us!
Curious about how magnets work? Wonder why the sky is blue? Looking for some cool science experiments you can try with materials you already have at home?
So are we! Join the LSOP team every Friday at 11:00 AM. We’ll do a series of experiments on a different topic each week, and show you how you can try these yourself.
And do let us know what topics you’d like for us to cover next. What are you curious about?
Next Episode
Science It Up!
Last week, we asked students to share their questions with us—and did they ever! We got questions from “Why can we see clouds, since they are made of air?” to “Why do snowflakes have different designs?” On this episode, we are going to take one question after another and Science It Up! We’ll take each question and use it for experimentation and exploration. We figured out how make snow crystals in the freezer, and we are experimenting to see if we get different crystals at different temperatures. We’ll see if we can make oil sink in water, we’ll do some experimenting with old TVs, we’ll create and destroy clouds, we’ll and try to make a green cloud…. And more! Some of the things we try won’t work, and some will produce unexpected results—which is the best part of science. The next time you have a question about how the world works, don’t look it up—Science It Up!
If you are a K-12 teacher and would like to have your class featured on a future episode, please get in touch!
LSOP Live: Science It Up!
Friday, February 26
10:30 – 11:00 AM
Little Shop Live in the Classroom
Little Shop Live has been bringing a program each week to the homes of students doing online or hybrid instruction. As schools return to in-person instruction, we want to come back to the classroom with you!
We’ll keep the same time and the same general format, but with a few changes:
- We’ll pick topics matched to science teaching standards. Do you have a topic you’d like us to treat? Let us know!
- We’ll choose a classroom to be special guests for the day—we’ll give you an activity to do, or let you come up with your own, and we’ll feature you!
- We’ll provide a resource page for teachers (and students and families) to see small video clips we made and to find additional information.
Do you have an idea or a suggestion for us? Please do contact us and share your ideas!
How LSOP Live Works
Making a safe science experience for everyone!
We have set up LSOP Live as a Zoom meeting so we can see you, and we can take comments and suggestions from our participants. Your energy is what makes the Little Shop what it is! The more excited you are, the more ideas you share, the better it is for everyone.
But we want to be sure that everyone can enjoy every minute of LSOP Live without worrying about excess chatter or a cluttered chat, so we’ve set up our Zoom meetings to be safe and secure:
- We want you to be able to communicate with us, to send us questions or suggestions—so the chat field will be available for you! But anything you type goes only to us; the other participants will not see your comments.
- We will monitor the chat, and we will have a person dedicated to watching the chat and adjusting meeting settings as needed.
- Everyone will be muted—so you can ooh and aah and make as much noise as you like without bothering other people. If we want to give someone a chance to talk, we will unmute them.
- We will spotlight the program video, and keep other people from sharing their screens.
- We have set a limit on the number of participants. We can take up to 300 participants. This will let us keep careful track of everything that is going on. If you aren’t able to get in, you needn’t miss all of the fun—you can watch the video that we’ll post.
- If people are disruptive, we will remove them.
We have also made some upgrades to our audio and video equipment so we will have a better looking and better sounding program than ever.
We have been impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of our participants, and we look forward to seeing you all on the next installment of LSOP Live!
Past Episodes
LSOP Live: Science It Up!, February 26, 2021
Last week, we asked students to share their questions with us—and did they ever! We got questions from “Why can we see clouds, since they are made of air?” to “Why do snowflakes have different designs?” On this episode, we take one question after another and Science It Up! We take each question and use [...]
LSOP Live: Bouncing, Bending, and Twisting Light, February 19, 2021
Mirrors, lenses, and polarizers, oh my! In this episode we show you some amazing effects that you can recreate at home. We make objects seem to disappear, make transparent objects develop colors, turn people upside down, make a mirror out of transparent materials, and show you how to use a mirror to make what seems [...]
LSOP Live: Sinking and Floating, February 12, 2021
A bowling ball—does it sink or float? The answer might surprise you, as will dozens of the experiments we share. We float bubbles and steel balls, and make a ketchup packet go back and forth between sinking and floating. We answer the question: What happens to buoyancy when you turn off gravity? And we leave [...]
LSOP Live: The Music Show, February 5, 2021
Talking about music gives us a chance to talk about forces, frequency, energy, vibrations, and states of matter. It’s a rich topic, and one we had a lot of fun exploring. How many ways can you play Hot Cross Buns? We play it on glasses, bottles, sewer pipes, electrical conduit, and, of course, actual hot [...]
LSOP Live: It’s About Time, January 29, 2021
This episode is about time! We use video to slow time down, to speed time up, to make time go backwards—and we see how this changes our view of the world. We also do some cool tabletop experiments with metronomes, with hot cocoa, and with hand sanitizer. What do these things have to do with [...]
LSOP Live: The Heart of the Matter, January 22, 2021
This week, we are trying something new! We treat topics that are part of the state science standards, to better connect with what students are learning in school. This week, we consider the following fact: matter is made of atoms. Understanding this helps understand matter’s appearance and its behavior. Why is steel bouncy? (It is—very [...]
LSOP Live: The Water Show, January 15, 2021
What’s so special about water? Quite a bit, as it turns out! In this episode, we show you a bunch of simple experiments you can do that illustrate the special properties of water. We make water freeze on command, make a stream of water follow a string, use water to lift writing off glass, and [...]
LSOP Live: The Weather Show, January 8, 2021
What makes clouds form? And why are they white? How does the spin of the earth lead to the spin of a storm? Why do some storms make lightning? And how does lightning lead to thunder? We answer all of these questions—and more!—on our first show of 2021!
LSOP Live: The Animal Show, December 18, 2020
This is the #1 request we’ve had for a show: Animals! We are be joined in the studio by some animals, and we also show some videos of animals doing what they do. We got some great videos from PSD students that are featured: horses, snakes, eagles—and lots of dogs and cats.
LSOP Live: Science Magic, December 11, 2020
In this episode we things disappear, make things levitate in mid-air, make a broken glass reassemble itself and more! We do a lot of things that look like magic, and show you the science that makes the magic happen. As always, we show you a bunch of things you can try at home. Remember, it's [...]
LSOP Live: Put a Spin On It, December 4, 2020
What do tops and tornadoes have in common? They do what they do because of spin. In this episode, we show you how to make a centrifuge, how to make a tornado in a jar, and we make tornadoes with fog and flame. Check out our most head-spinning episode yet!
LSOP Live: Balance, November 20, 2020
Be prepared to be active! You’ll want to stand up and trying some of the activities that we share. We discuss how your sense of balance works and how to make it better. We show you how you can experience three different kinds of dizziness. We show you how to make it impossible to stand [...]
LSOP Live: Energy, November 13, 2020
Energy is a science principle that can be used to explain and explore so many things. We show exploding bubbles and bouncing balloons, heat up a gummy bear by hitting it with a hammer, launch stuffed animals at great speeds, and explain the science of how it all works and how you can try all [...]
LSOP Live: Force and Motion, November 6, 2020
You know how when you go over the first big hill on a roller coaster, it feels like your stomach rises up? That’s because it does…. We have a great demonstration to show this, as well as some things that look like magic. Can you pull a tablecloth out from under glasses on a table? [...]
LSOP Live: The Goo Show, October 30, 2020
The boundary between solids and liquids isn’t as clear as you might think. You can make a liquid behave like a solid, or a solid behave like a liquid. Some things have properties of both, and there is a lot of interesting science that lies underneath. This is a messy but informative show. Can you [...]
LSOP Live: Pressure, October 23, 2020
We use pressure to levitate light bulbs and crush cans, including a really large one. We show you how to make an airbrush with a straw and a marker, allowing you to make some really cool artwork. We have a straw so long you can’t drink through it. And special guests. And more!
LSOP Live: Heat and Thermodynamics, October 9, 2020
When will fire pop a balloon? How can you use heat to power a boat? Can you see thermal energy, or use it to make art or a delicious treat? Find out the answers to all these questions and more on this episode of LSOP Live!
LSOP Live: Light and Color, October 2, 2020
We have packed this episode with special surprises! We use laser pointers to peer inside objects and to pop balloons. We show why the sky is blue and why sunsets are red. We show you how to write with light and listen to light, and let you see beyond the rainbow! We are joined by [...]
LSOP Live: Waves and Oscillations, September 25, 2020
Why do you swing your arms when you walk? Why is lightning followed by thunder? And, most importantly, what happens when you drop a bowling ball on a giant water balloon? In this episode of LSOP Live, we discuss all this and more. This week, we introduce a new feature – polling! We ask you [...]
LSOP Live: Magnetism, September 18, 2020
Refrigerator magnets aren’t like other magnets…. They don’t have just one north and one south pole; they might have a dozen of each! And why do magnets stick to the refrigerator anyway? In this episode of LSOP Live we do more than a dozen cool experiments with magnets and magnetism. We show you where secret [...]
LSOP Live: Bubbles, September 11, 2020
Brian, Brenna, Maude, and Emma serve up some awesome science you can do with soap, water, and bubbles. Check out floating coins, surface tension, sand that does not get wet, floating nail polish air, square bubbles, bubbles with holes in them, juggling bubbles, and our secret recipe for bubble solution!
LSOP Live: Kitchen Chemistry, September 4, 2020
Join the LSOP crew for some science fun in the kitchen! Color-changing tea, making cheese in 1 minute, making ink disappear, and, for our grand finale, a rather frothy microwave surprise.
